"Permanent Blight? "

August 23, 2002

My boss tried everything in her power to get me fired - including a poor (I believe unwarranted) evaluation. I have changed positions (laterally) in the organization (thankfully), but the evaluation remains in my file. What should I do?

Lateral Thinker

Dear Lateral Thinker,

It sounds like your boss's efforts to get you fired did not succeed and are not likely to. So your concern is with the poor evaluation that is sitting there in your file.

Two possibilities occur to me. If your firm has a policy which allows employees to challenge an evaluation you can consider going that route. You can talk to your new boss, or to the human resources folks to find out about this. They might also be able to offer some advice about just how much you should be concerned about this evaluation.

Another course of action is to just let the matter rest. If the poor evaluation was unjustified and you start to build up some good evaluations in the new position, then that old one won't have much impact when the time comes for you to be considered for another move. You can feel a lot safer about this if your boss is known as someone who uses evalautions to "get" people he or she doesn't like.

Being subjected to a supervisor's abuse of power is never fun. You have to make a difficult choice here, however. Whether to let it slide, or whether to make a complaint and risk a power struggle with your former supervisor. You need to weigh how much damage the evaluation is likely to cause in your future to determine which of the two choices I've suggested
is right for you.

Good luck.

Dr. John

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